Tuesday, June 1, 2010

Tonno Sott'Olio

I have so many intriguing pictures of projects in process. I am waiting for the goose parts until they've fully cured. The goose cracklings and rendered fat pictures are seriously sexy. And alas I missed taking a shot of bastirma brought camping this weekend. Fresh sourdough flat breads cooked (ok, slightly burned) on a hot griddle, yoghurt and tahini with cukes, sour pickles. It was nice.

But I came home to this. Trust me, it is worth doing. Go to a good Japanese grocery store and buy a cut of sushi grade albacore tuna. I've never seen it before at our local Sakura. It was labeled ahi, yellow fin, and albacore, though I'm not sure it's really the same species that goes into a can as solid white tuna. We're talking a huge fish, not something you pick up on a fishing trip. Well, maybe you do, and if so, please bring me along.

Take this and salt it well. Nothing more. Leave it for a week. No, I take that back. Look at the picture! Peppered well. And put under weight in the fridge for a week, turned every day.

Then smoke gently over a smouldering oak log for about 15 minutes. Let cool. Place under oil in little glass jars. I know you scientist geeks will tell me to pressure cook at 8,000 pounds pressure in an industrial strength canner. I'm only keeping this for another week, in the fridge, not on the shelf.

It reminded me of two things. Tuna in a can, really incredibly solid and mild flavored. Nothing like good European tuna in a can like Flotta or A's do Mar which is decidedly fishy. And it also reminded me of smoked whitefish, which my mother tells me was my favorite food as a baby. She would break it up, put it on my high chair and leave me for hours to savor it slowly. Apparently kept me quiet! It still would today if I could find anything like it here in the wasteland of the Central Valley. Seriously I've never seen it for sale anywhere in California.

Anyway, this tasted just like it, but not quite as oily. I am about to have it again for dinner right now. I'd give me at least an hour. Preferably in the high chair.

Love begins with Diablo III Gold a smile，grows with a kiss，ends with a Diablo 3 Gold tear. When you were born，you were crying and everyone around you was smiling. Live your life so that when you die，you're the one Diablo III Gold smiling and everyone around you is crying.

I was not delivered Diablo 3 Gold unto this world in defeat, nor does failure course Diablo III Gold in my veins. I am not a sheep waiting to be prodded by my shepherd. I am a lion and I refuse to talk, to walk, to sleep with the Diablo 3 Gold sheep. I will hear not those who weep and complain, for their disease is contagious. Let them join the sheep. The slaughterhouse of failure is not my destiny.

Food A Cultural Culinary History

About Me

Food Historian at the University of the Pacific. Director of Food Studies in San Francisco.
Author of Eating Right in the Renaissance, Food in Early Modern Europe, Cooking in Europe 1250-1650, The Banquet, Beans (2008 IACP Jane Grigson Award) and Pancake. A cookbook with Rosanna Nafziger THE LOST ART OF REAL COOKING.
Coeditor of The Lord's Supper with Trudy Eden and Editor of A Cultural History of Food: The Renaissance.
Food Cultures of the World Encyclopedia (4 vols.) Three World Cuisines: Italian, Mexican and Chinese recently won the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards Best Foreign Cuisine book in the World. The Routledge International Handbook to Food Studies is in print.
A sequel to the cookbook - entitled THE LOST ARTS OF HEARTH AND HOME.
Latest Books: Grow Food, Cook Food, Share Food from Oregon State U Press, a little book on Nuts from Reaktion and The Food History Reader from Bloomsbury. The Most Excellent Book of Cookery (translation of a 16th c. French Cookbook with Tim Tomasik) from Prospect Books. Not to mention THE BEAST: The Food Issues Encyclopedia for Sage. Still in the works.